


Safe (in the heat of the moment)

by newtype



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Art Student Keith, Barista Shiro, Canon Gay Character, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Sheithlentines 2017, Slice of Life, Takes place on valentine's day but Keith kinda doesn't care, They're that couple where one person has good fashion taste while the other doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtype/pseuds/newtype
Summary: After months of waiting Keith finally moves in with Shiro. Someone makes a questionable fashion purchase.February came in a heartbeat; this was their new life together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My Valentine's exchange piece for @redxyami! I hope you enjoy it! Beta-reading credit goes to Micah.  
> Special thanks to Mich and Darby for the discord company. I've had this AU around for a while, but I apologize for any technical inaccuracies regarding the letterpress equipment.

 

_There's always secrets left to keep_  
_Safe not sound_  
_Who made these rules_  
_Crowd control for enlightened fools_

* * *

A loud thump rattled the table. Keith rolled his neck and toyed with the thought that, if he were to sit any closer to the edge, he might fall over. Right. Wouldn’t want that to happen.

“Are you going to be outside?”

“In a minute,” Keith answered into the phone.

“I can’t stay outside all day, you know,” Shiro sighed. “It’s freezing.”

“You’re not used to the cold?”

“Not when the temperature is this low.”

“Want me to come warm you up, then?” Keith teased and slid further back on the table, which painfully creaked in response. “Don’t you still have that shirt?”

“Which one?” Shiro lingered on the question, not quite sure what Keith was trying to get out. Between them, they might as well have shared an entire wardrobe of scattered articles of clothing. By now he must’ve counted at least six different cars driving by.

“The...that chocolate one. From downtown.” There was a chance Keith was thinking of something else, but he was sure he’d deliberately picked it out for Shiro on their last trip to the thrift store. Of all places, the inconspicuous brick and mortar building had become a frequent date spot. He specifically remembered the pink, with an outrageous pop-art chocolate art design he knew would look great stretched across Shiro’s chest. Keith sighed and checked his nails; it was too early to be thinking about this.

“I have no idea where that thing must’ve went.” Shiro kicked the ice at his feet, successfully managing to land it into a nearby snowdrift. “If it’s still around, yeah, good luck finding it.”

“In my room?”

“In one of ours, yeah.”

“Or maybe not,” Keith laughed into the receiver. He balanced the phone between his neck and shoulder to lean down, tie his shoes, and slide off the table. “Maybe you left it in the laundry.”

A chilly breeze washed over Keith. He hurriedly locked the apartment door behind him, double-checked his pockets, and glanced at the stairs for ice. Last time he sadly ended up eating shit, landing awkwardly on his arm. The bruise reminded him of Arizona.

“Rise and shine,” Shiro greeted him, waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. A cotton grey scarf was neatly tied around his neck, tucked into the collar of his button-down black coat. A hint of his white bangs peeked from the edges of his knitted hat, something that made Keith’s heartbeat skip a beat in giddy recognition. After watching his footing, Keith met him below, wasting no time before he wrapped his arms around Shiro and embraced the much-appreciated warmth.

Growing up in the frigid city, Shiro knew how to dress for the winter, but Keith had never learned to appreciate snow. Ever since he finally got his shit together to move in with Shiro, the weather had begun to unexpectedly creep up on him, and he took advantage of Shiro’s body heat when he could.

“Looking good,” Keith teased, picking up the scarf. “It’s soft.”

To Keith’s alarm, the gesture was enough for Shiro to begin unwrapping it. He opened his mouth, ready to refuse as politely as he could, but Shiro just laughed at his sudden incapacity to say what he meant.

“You need it more than I do. Is it warm?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Shiro answered, satisfied knowing he could help. Keith sighed in quiet relief. Another breeze tumbled past them, shuffling the snow piled up on the block, unsettling some of the branches of overhanging trees. Morning had the benefit of being relatively quiet, Keith realized, when neither of them had anything particularly pressing to attend to. He couldn’t regret taking a moment to get fresh air, clear his mind, find the time of day without a thousand different worries swarming his head.

It’d only been a month. Six weeks since he tumbled through Shiro’s front door with his duffle bag, his hoodie, his good intentions.

Shiro nudged him quietly, squeezing his forearm the way Keith knew meant he was spacing out.

“If we’re lucky, we can stop by the coffee shop. My treat. Employee discount,” Shiro said.

“Spending the day in the print shop…” Keith started. “Definitely sure, we can do that.” While he currently had no intentions of showing anyone his unfinished work, Keith decided Shiro could be his one exception.

Keith regretted not planning how long it was going to take him to finish the project. But their two-bedroom was painfully cramped, and Shiro was still in the process of prying through his former roommate’s old crap. Eventually, they could set up somewhere for him to work, but for now Keith was mooching off the space he and a couple of others were sharing. The owner had been generous enough to let them use it without much of a hassle, which meant Keith slowly began spending more time there than settling into the apartment.

“It’s your passion,” Shiro said, “and I like watching you work. It’s all over your face, when you handle those machines with your —”

“Alright, alright,” Keith laughed, “I get it. I’m sorry you don’t get to do anything hands-on while we visit, though. If I have time, I’ll show you a thing or two.”

Shiro’s response was only a wave of the hand. Keith remembered he’d shown some interest in printmaking before, but not quite on par to how seriously Keith was studying it currently.

“Trust me, I get enough of that already at work. Thank you, though,” Shiro said. He rubbed the spot on Keith’s shoulder where he was resting his gloved hand. Beneath it was the prosthetic Shiro had acquired only two years ago. Keith never asked him how he got it. A question like that seemed too sensitive, he realized, despite having practically poured his soul out to Shiro right before deciding to move.

“I think you’d be good at it,” Keith told him. “You’re good at almost anything you do. Or, I mean, at least you focus a lot better than I do. I get too distracted in the shop.”

“Speaking of that. Shouldn’t we be going?”

Suddenly all the warmth Keith thought he’d lost came rushing to his face. He laughed awkwardly, watching the puffs of air escape his mouth.

February came in a heartbeat. This was their new life together.

*

By the time Keith had placed his bags on the print shop floor, Shiro was stumbling through with a takeout carton of coffee. Keith clenched his teeth at the sight, hastily rose from his knees, and took the offending object out from Shiro’s hands. The taller man sucked in his breath, bringing the cold from outside back with him in the barely insulated studio.

“Typical,” Keith laughed, watching Shiro balance the cardboard tray. “Were they okay with you bringing this much?”

Shiro shrugged, and began folding away his scarf. “Probably, but it’s nothing to me. I figured, if we up spending the day here and anyone else using the studio space drops by…”

“You want the place to yourself?” Keith asked, not bothering to turn away from the print press machine.

“If we end up staying later than we anticipate, I mean” Shiro explained, “Not that I wouldn’t mind — I have no clue how any of this equipment works. Maybe you can teach me.”

“That’s sweet,” Keith hummed, “If I end up finishing early, yeah, there’s a chance.” He licked the tips of his fingers and reached for a matted roll of paper. The material in this particular sheet had taken a bit longer to prep than the last batch; this specific brand of vellum finish paper had come out of his personal paycheck. Shiro watched in silence as Keith smoothed the material out on the measuring board, setting down the guard before carefully lowering the blade. Before lowering the horizontal blade, he pulled a short pencil from behind his ear and make simple markings. Once the cutting was completed, Keith quickly reset the board and set the measured paper aside.

Shiro whistled. “Fast work,” he commented.

“Thanks,” Keith whispered. “I wasn’t sure picking this one out, but I think it’s going to suit the lithograph I have in mind better.”

“Just like —”

“The one I mailed you from Arizona. But, Christ,” Keith sighed, “that was still a pretty shoddy job. I was just a kid with no idea what I was doing.”

“Don’t say that,” Shiro interrupted. He gestured at the letterpress machine, an old-fashioned model that had been previously collecting dust until Keith started using the space weeks ago. “You’re doing great work here, seriously. I never doubt it when you say you need to come here.”

“—It’s quiet,” Keith mumbled, “I like it here.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin if — well,” Shiro replied, “I guess you can show me one day once you’re all caught up. I’m surprised you picked it up so easily.”

Keith hummed as he stepped away, reaching over the rows of tiny wooden boxes shelved behind the letterpress. The model’s original owner (it’d been donated to space at least twenty years ago, to Keith’s knowledge) did quite a lot of book printing, lithographs, and embossing himself, so Keith only had to politely ask before he could use the proper equipment.

The lithograph Keith made was currently hanging in Shiro’s room, right above his bedside. A roughly ten by twelve-inch print with a charcoal etching of the backwoods right outside Keith’s Arizona house. Keith’s father was particularly fond of the drawing, but Keith didn’t waste any time bringing it to the nearest letterpress so Shiro could own it.

 _Patience yields focus,_ printed across a span of desert and the likeness of the wilderness Keith grew up exploring. It’d become something resembling a mantra for him, a constant that anchored his body and presence in whatever he was currently doing. Shiro said it only in passing, in one of their dozens of long-distance phone calls without paying it any mind later on. It was ironic, reminding Keith of a bizarre inversion of _I Want to Believe_ but with a personal spin.

Before moving in, before deciding to pack his shit and leave Arizona in the middle of Shiro’s midwest winter, Keith had wrapped the lithograph as carefully as he could. Every night after he mailed it to Shiro, he waited one day more to ask Shiro if he’d ever received it. It wasn’t a complicated piece by any means, but…

“Need help finding something?” Shiro asked. “Lost?”

“Not lost,” Keith shot back. “I’m fine.”

“Alright then,” Shiro said, hanging to the words in the exact way reminded Keith that this was quickly becoming one of their standard conversations.

While he entertained this thought, Keith sorted through the containers, scooping up the individual letters between nimble fingers. When he was finished, Shiro had taken a seat on the armrest of the green sofa, the only real piece of furniture anyone had bothered to leave in the studio.

Keith paused to watch Shiro finish his coffee. With his jacket sleeves rolled up, Keith had a full view of the other man’s forearms, which only made his eyes follow upwards, hoping to get a glimpse of his biceps as he turned to notice him. In comparison, Keith practically felt like a stick that might snap in two if he wasn’t careful.

“It’s gonna get cold, Keith. Take a break.”

“Warm you up, you mean,” Keith answered. Maybe he felt as if Shiro wouldn’t be affronted by this type of comment, but Keith immediately wanted to swallow his words. The back of his ears suddenly felt much hotter than the rest of his body. Which was ridiculous, he thought, it was freezing outside and he couldn’t even keep his thoughts straight.

“Yeah,” Keith coughed. “That sounds great.” Flustered. Panic. He was sweating.

Keeping his hands busy at the press was enough, normally, when he couldn’t bear the sight of Shiro lounging around the open studio, admiring what work other people had left behind to finish. It even felt a little wrong here, Keith realized, with all these reminders of strangers coming and going, not to mention the coffee shop downstairs where Shiro made an honest living.

Words were not his specialty. They seemed to always say what he meant, or, at least, closer to what he intended when they were crushed between ink and metal. A little brutal, but it was the truth.

Shiro shifted off the armrest to make space for Keith to squeeze in, take his coffee and feel the warmth seep through the cardboard.

“I actually did find it,” Shiro said. After a beat, he began sliding the rest of his winter clothing off, which caused Keith to sputter mid-gulp.

“Find what?” he choked.

“The shirt, you know, that really ugly one from the thrift.”

“Oh no, please...” Keith rubbed his temples. “You actually put it on? Just for me?”

“Well, it’s kinda special,” Shiro laughed. “It’s not like I’m going to go walking around town showing it off, or anything. Allura thought it was hilarious. She thinks you have good taste.”

“In what, clothing a sixth grader would wear?” Keith smiled. It was a compliment, at least, something Allura rarely ever bothered to give unless she genuinely meant it.

He kicked his feet on the table, crossing his boots. Shiro seemed to have relaxed a little; the additional weight at the end of the sofa felt right, a counterbalance to the ball of nerves Keith felt drumming against his chest. Could've been the coffee, he guessed, could've been the chill of February slipping through his skin. A fresh silence like the slow realization that spring was coming, that the edge of winter was closer to melting away.

Another hour or so, Keith thought, a few more months of this, brisk touches of the shoulder and sighs, and this new city will soon be familiar enough to call home. By that time, they would move the boxes out of the spare room, make a workspace for him, save up enough money at both their minimum-wage jobs to do something nice for themselves. They could make it work; a new place meant new opportunities, an avenue Keith hadn’t seriously considered until Shiro came into his life.

Shiro’s bare hand rubbed circles into his clavicle, brushed against Keith’s thigh and lean over to ghost a kiss over the skin of his neck. The sensation woke Keith up, snapped him back into reality, into Shiro’s embrace. His warm lips made Keith shiver, lean into the gentle caress, sigh into the burning sensation of coffee against his throat.

“Welcome home,” Shiro murmured. “There’s so much I want to show you. I’m so glad.”

He’d rarely seen this expression on Shiro’s face — almost resembling euphoria, like a burden had finally been lifted off his shoulders. Keith swallowed in anticipation, knowing all too well the anxiety bubbling up in his chest.

 _It’s like a fire sometimes,_ he had confessed over the phone months ago. _Shiro, it’s like something is burning inside of me all the time. I just don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to bear it._

All Keith could do was turn around, wrap him around his neck, and let the warmth he desperately needed from Shiro overwhelm him. Like ink sinking through layers of fabric, pressed down by repeated pressure, heated and ironed. Taking as much time as it needed for the pattern to make its mark, Keith lingered there, parting his mouth only momentarily to breathe in Shiro’s sigh.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“You sure?” Shiro laughed at his own question, but Keith hesitated, wondering if he meant exactly what he intended to say.

“It took a while, but I can start off here again, y’know.” Keith tugged at Shiro’s shirt, smiling at the absurd tackiness of the design. “There’s a lot of room for us to grow.”

“Grow, huh?” Shiro sounded almost skeptical.

“It could happen. Once everything melts away, I mean.”

A timid smile pulled at Shiro’s lips. Keith brushed the white wisp away from his forehead, lowering his hands to his chin, pressing another quick kiss before sliding off the couch. His boots made a satisfying thump against the floorboards, like an alarm to clear the room and rock them back to full alertness.

“Well, I don’t have all day,” Keith said. He paused to stretch, crossing his elbow over his head, twisting his spine in a way that made him flex his heels in front of Shiro. The other man ran a hand through his hair, toying with his white bangs again, watching Keith glide over to the print press with a determined stride.

“We can stay the night,” Shiro offered. “I can grab food, some beers. It’s cold out there, anyways. Why rush?”

“It’s for someone special —”

“Someone I know?”

“Yeah.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/watsnewbussycat)


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